The long-awaited meeting between Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to discuss the law and order situation in the state would take place on January 19 in Delhi.
The chief minister would also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the same day, sources in the chief minister's secretariat said on Friday.
"'The chief minister is going to Delhi on January 18 to meet the home minister and prime minister the next day,"' the sources said.
The Union home minister had sent a letter to the chief minister, calling him to Delhi to discuss the law and order situation following the killing of seven persons, allegedly by Communist Party of India - Marxist cadres at Netai village in Maoist-affected West Midnapore district.
Chidamabaram had requested Bhattacharjee to 'reschedule all appointments' and visit Delhi 'immediately' and pointed to the virtual collapse of law and order in some parts of the state.
In his reply, the chief minister objected to the use of a word 'harmad' in Chidambaram's letter to describe CPI-M workers. The chief minister is scheduled to return to Kolkata from Delhi on January 19 evening because of a state cabinet meeting the next day, the sources said.
Earlier, the chief minister had said that he would be able to visit Delhi only in the third week of January.
